BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
[0001] The present invention relates to a method for displaying guide lines (partition)
which show a storage state of documents divided by contents in, for example, an electronic
filing system.
2. Description of the Related Art
[0002] First, terms used in this specification and claims are explained as follows.
(A) Guide line: In a filing system to which the present invention is applied, documents
to be managed are classified in accordance with a classification system, in which
a classified border and partition are inserted. When the classification state is displayed
on the screen of, e.g., a cathode ray tube, the border line corresponding to the partition
is called a "guide line".
(B) Guide: A domain between guide lines is called a "guide" or "guide domain". The
guide domain is used when the area of the guide is emphasized.
(C) Rank: A group of documents classified by a partition are referred to by "rank",
e.g., 1 to 10 in accordance with the respective number of documents.
(D) Mouse: A mouse is an input device in a data processing system. By the operation
thereof, a display on the display screen is controlled.
[0003] Generally, in a filing system a plurality of documents are classified and stored,
e.g., in a tree configuration in accordance with the contents, and thus the selection
and retrieval of the necessary documents can be easily effected.
[0004] Also, in an electronic filing system, it has been considered that a display screen
be partitioned by guide lines in accordance with the kind of documents concerned to
give a feeling similar to files stored in a drawer.
[0005] Selecting of a guide or folder is accomplished by pushing the left side key on a
mouse in the system, or an inhibit operation of the selected folder is executed by
pushing the right key on the mouse, the folder being the lowest hierarchical classification.
[0006] On the display screen, the selected folder is shown by inverted letters in black
and white. The guide structure is a hierarchical structure, and therefore, when all
the guides belonging to a particular higher guide are selected, the higher guide is
also selected and the expression thereof is executed by the inverted letters in black
and white. The total number of documents belonging to the folder shown by inversion
is displayed on the display screen. The total number of documents is renewed in accordance
with the mouse operation simultaneously with a renewal of the display.
[0007] In the above related art, there is a problem that a number of documents belonging
to a folder containing several documents cannot be found immediately.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
[0008] An object of the present invention is to provide a way to easily search for or manage
documents by changing the state of guide lines in response to the number of documents
belonging to the guide.
[0009] In the present invention there is provided a system wherein a plurality of stored
documents are distributed in accordance with the contents thereof, guide lines are
provided on the borders of the distributed documents and the guide lines are displayed
on the display screen. A method for displaying amount of documents is characterized
in that the method comprises a step of determining the state of respective guide lines
in response to the number of documents collected together and having the same classification.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0010]
Figure 1 is a perspective view of an example of an electronic filing system using
a method according to the present invention;
Fig. 2 is a block diagram of the system of Fig. 1;
Figs. 3A, 3B and 3C are diagrams showing the constitution and control flow of the
system of Fig. 1;
Fig. 4 is a diagram explaining hierarchical guides;
Fig. 5 is a diagram explaining a conventional method for displaying documents in the
hierarchical guide;
Fig. 6 is a diagram explaining an information form for a guide on a data base;
Fig. 7 is a diagram showing a construction of data related to a guide display in a
data base;
Fig. 8 is a diagram explaining one drawer of information;
Fig. 9 is a flowchart of a display control for displaying a guide state in the system
of Fig. 1;
Fig. 10 is a flowchart showing in detail a display of a guide domain in the flowchart
of Fig. 9;
Fig. 11 is a diagram showing an image displayed by the method for displaying amount
of documents according to a first embodiment of this invention;
Fig. 12 is a flowchart showing a process of the embodiment of Fig. 11;
Fig. 13 is a block diagram of display control of the embodiment of Fig. 11;
Fig. 14 is a flowchart showing a process of the second embodiment of the invention;
Fig. 15 is a flowchart showing a process of the third embodiment of the invention;
Fig. 16 is a block diagram of a display control of the embodiment of Fig. 15;
Fig. 17 is a diagram showing a relationship between number of documents and guide
line spacing, guide line thickness, and guide hue as examples of the embodiments;
Fig. 18 is a flowchart showing a process for obtaining rank (R) corresponding to number
of documents; and
Fig. 19 is a flowchart showing a process for calculating a concrete interval in Fig.
18.
DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
[0011] Prior to explaining embodiments of the present invention, related arts will be explained
with reference to drawings. First, a summary of an electronic filing system to which
this invention is preferably applied is explained with reference to Figs. 1 to 3.
[0012] Figure 1 is a perspective view of this system. Display device 1 is a device for displaying
documents stored in this system. Scanner device 2 is a device for storing input image
data. A printing device 3 (e.g., laser beam printer) prints and outputs the stored
documents. A 5.25 inch optical disk device 4 and a 12 inch optical disk device 5 store
the documents. A processor 6 manages a controller and data base in the system. A keyboard
7 is a device for inputting letters, etc. A reference numeral 8 is a mouse.
[0013] Figure 2 is a block diagram of the system of Fig. 1. An optical disk 9 shown in the
drawing includes the 5.25 inch optical disk device 4 and the 12 inch optical disk
device 5 in Fig. 1. Memory devices 10 and 11 are a floppy disk and a direct access
storage device which is a random access memory, respectively.
[0014] Figure 3 is divided into Fig. 3A, Fig. 3B and Fig. 3C and is a block diagram showing
a constitution and a control process of the electronic filing system.
[0015] The electronic filing system executes storage of documents, and retrieval, reference,
and printing of the stored documents using the optical disk. The register (store)
of the documents to the optical disk can be carried out by an operation similar to
a copy machine. When the documents are registered, the title of the document, the
data registered, a keyword, and the like are stored simultaneously.
[0016] To retrieve an object document needed by a user from the many registered documents,
the following or a similar method is used. Namely, the object domain is narrowed on
a one by one basis from large to small classification, as if proceeding from a trunk
to the leaves of a tree, or information an individual documents can be utilized by
a so-called keyword retrieval. After locating the document, various operations (reference,
printing, etc.) can be carried out.
[0017] The classification structure of the documents is explained next with reference to
Fig. 4. The necessary data for displaying a guide list is shown in Fig. 4 as a data
format example. For example, document files are stored in the respective allotted
folders C-1-1-1, ..., C-1-2-1, ..., C-2-1-1, and for example, if C-1-1-1, C-1-1-2,
and C-1-1-3 belong to the same classification or are relevant to each other, they
are collected together as a second guide for example, B-1-1. Further, if documents
belonging to the second guides B-1-1 and B-1-2 have the same classification or are
relevant to each other, these are collected together as a first guide A-1, and then
the documents are stored by a three step hierarchical structure.
[0018] In Fig. 5, a conventional example of display in the electronic filing system wherein
documents having the structure shown in Fig. 4 are filed, is shown. This display simulates
actual document files stored in a drawer. Lines having an upwardly projecting portion
at the left side of the display represent first guides A-1 and A-2 which show the
first hierarchical group, lines having a projecting portion at the center of the display
represent second guides B-1-1, B-1-2, and B-2-1 which show the second hierarchical
group, and lines having a projecting portion at the right side of the display represent
folders C-1-1-1, C-1-1-2, C-1-1-3, C-1-2-1 and C-1-2-2, namely, a total of three kinds
of partitions (guide lines) are displayed.
[0019] In the upper portion of Fig. 5, labels "FIRST GUIDE", "SECOND GUIDE", and "FOLDER"
are displayed corresponding to the above-mentioned projecting portions. In addition,
in the upper portion of Fig. 5, a cabinet name indicating a cabinet in which these
document files are stored, a drawer name, and document numbers belonging to the drawer,
are shown. In the lower portion of the figure, the black arrow m is an on-screen pointer
manipulated by a mouse.
[0020] The document number for the drawer of Fig. 5 is 47 which is the total number of documents
belonging to the drawer.
[0021] White arrows at the right side of the display screen show a designated domain for
page renewal or for a large degree of scrolling when the mouse so designates. Fine
arrows show a designated domain for a small degree of scrolling compared with the
white arrows.
[0022] When the above folders C-1-1-1, C-1-1-2, C-1-1-3, C-1-2-1, and C-1-2-2, for example,
are designated by the mouse, it is preferable that the data showing the contents of
the document as the title of the document belonging to the folder, be displayed at
a convenient point on the display screen.
[0023] In addition, the folders identified by slanted lines, namely the folders C-1-1-3,
C-1-1-2 and C-1-1-1, and the second guide B-1-1 are currently selected and the letters
are actually inverted from black to white and from white to black compared with the
other folders.
[0024] The information concerning guides used as a data base has a form shown in Fig. 6.
Also, the construction of guide display data as a data base, is as shown in Fig. 7.
Further, the information relating to guides in the drawer is shown in Fig. 8.
[0025] In Fig. 9, the process for displaying the guide list is shown in the form of a process
flowchart. In Fig. 10, a flowchart showing a display process of the guide domain display
according to the present invention is illustrated.
[0026] In Fig. 11, an example of display using a method for displaying amount of documents
according to a first embodiment of the present invention is shown. Figure 12 shows
a flowchart of a process for executing this method. In the method according to this
embodiment, width of folders are changed in response to the number of the documents.
This process is executed by the following steps. Namely, in the step of determining
of the ordinate of the border line of the folder, the parameter for the ordinate is
given as a value in response to the number of documents. This step is applied to all
the borders of the folders.
[0027] A block diagram of the display control according to this embodiment is shown in Fig.
13. A main control controls a parameter check, an initialization of an image logic
display, a fixed domain display, a right or left scroll domain display, and a guide
domain display. In this description, only the guide domain display is explained and
the others are abbreviated because the invention does not concern the same.
[0028] In Fig. 11, an example of the guide display using the method according to the present
invention is shown, wherein the spacing of the folders is determined as shown in Fig.
17 and the constitution of the documents is as shown in Fig. 4. In Fig. 17, n is an
arbitrary positive integer designated by the user.
[0029] Concretely, both the first guide, e.g., A-1 and the second guide, e.g., B-1-1 do
not store the documents, therefore, it is preferable that the space between the first
guide and the second guide be a constant minimum value, e.g., 2 cm.
[0030] Since the number of the documents belonging to the folder C-1-1-1 is 2 in the example,
the spacing of this folder is 2 cm with reference to Fig. 17 using n=10. Since the
number of the documents belonging to the folder C-1-1-2 is 10, the spacing of this
folder is 4 cm. The spacing of this folder C-1-1-3 before the next second guide B-1-2
is 8 cm because 35 documents belong to the folder C-1-1-3. Other spacings and their
number of documents are indicated on the right side of Fig. 11.
[0031] The ratio between the above interval and the number of the documents is not limited
by these examples.
[0032] In Fig. 11, a window W is shown by a dot-dashed line. The entire domain enclosed
by this dot-dashed line is displayed on the screen, however, by an up or down scrolling
of the mouse, the window displayed on the screen moves up and down equivalently to
reveal the upper and lower portions of the display domain.
[0033] A flowchart showing a process of a second embodiment is shown in Fig. 14. In this
embodiment, the thickness of the border line of the folder is changed in response
to the number of the documents. This process is executed in a guide line thickness
determination process. Namely, as a parameter, a value is calculated corresponding
to the number of the documents, and the border line of the folder having a thickness
corresponding to the number of documents is determined. The block diagram for display
control in this second embodiment is the same as Fig. 13.
[0034] A flowchart of a method for displaying amount of documents according to a third embodiment
of the invention is shown in Fig. 15. In this process, a third process step changes
the hue of a folder in accordance with the number of the documents. An example of
this hue allotment is shown in Fig. 17. Also, a block diagram of the display control
in this embodiment is shown in Fig. 16. In Fig. 16, only a color attaching process
block is added to the block diagram of Fig. 13.
[0035] Next, Fig. 17 will be explained. In Fig. 17, an example wherein the number of the
document (N) is divided into eleven ranks is shown. Namely, at the left side, ranks
(R) 1 to 11 are shown and the number of documents (N) corresponding to the ranks are
shown in the next column. In the number of the document (N), n is an arbitrary positive
integer selected by the user. The thickness of the folder can be expressed, for example,
as twice the rank number in centimeters. The thickness of the guide line can be expressed
as the same number as the respective rank in millimeters. The hue of the guide can
correspond to the hues from white to red noted in the column labelled hue.
[0036] The above ranking can be obtained by the process illustrated in the flowchart of
Fig. 18. Namely, if the guide (I) is not a folder, the guide spacing is given the
minimum rank, and if the document number (N) is larger than 10n, the rank is 11. INT
(N/n) refers to the integer portion of the quotient (N/n). These processes are applied
to all the guides and the ranks of all the guides are obtained.
[0037] In Fig. 19, particularly, a flowchart wherein the folder intervals in Fig. 17 are
obtained is shown. First, the number of documents is examined to determine whether
there are more than 99 or not, and if the number of documents is more than 99, interval
(K) is set to the maximum, i.e., 22 cm. If the document number is less than 100, the
document number is divided by 10, 1 is added to the integer part of the quotient,
and the sum is multiplied by 2 cm. The result is the folder interval (K).
[0038] By using this method according to the present invention, since the spacing of folders
is proportional to amount of documents, the number of the document belonging to the
folder can be known by the folder display. Accordingly, document management can be
carried out in a similar manner as in the usual filing system. Further, with reference
to the displayed amount of documents, an object document can be searched for and the
special effect by which the division of a folder including a large amount of documents
is executed, is achieved.
1. In einem System, in dem eine Vielzahl von gespeicherten Dokumenten gemäß deren Inhalt
verteilt ist, Leitrubriklinien an den Grenzen von klassifizierten Unterteilungen der
verteilten Dokumente vorgesehen sind und die Leitrubriklinien am Anzeigebildschirm
angezeigt werden, ist ein Verfahren zum Anzeigen einer Menge von Dokumenten dadurch
gekennzeichnet, daß das Verfahren einen Schritt zum Bestimmen des Zustandes von jeweiligen
Leitrubriklinien als Reaktion auf die Anzahl der Dokumente umfaßt, die zusammengetragen
wurden und dieselbe Klassifizierung haben.
2. Verfahren nach Anspruch 1, bei dem die Vielzahl von gespeicherten Dokumenten in einer
baumartigen hierarchischen Struktur klassifiziert und angeordnet ist.
3. Verfahren nach Anspruch 1 oder 2, bei dem der Zustand der Leitrubriklinien durch eine
Veränderung des Raumes zwischen den Leitrubriklinien ausgedrückt wird.
4. Verfahren nach Anspruch 3, bei dem die Veränderung des Raumes einen vorbestimmten
Maximalwert und einen vorbestimmten Minimalwert hat, wenn die Dokumentenanzahl bei
einem Maximum bzw. Minimum liegt.
5. Verfahren nach Anspruch 1 oder 2, bei dem der Zustand von jeweiligen Leitrubriklinien
durch eine Veränderung der Dicke der Leitrubriklinien ausgedrückt wird.
6. Verfahren nach Anspruch 1 oder 2, bei dem der Zustand von jeweiligen Leitrubriklinien
durch eine Veränderung des Farbtons eines Abschnittes zwischen den Leitrubriklinien
ausgedrückt wird.
7. Verfahren nach irgendeinem der Ansprüche 1 bis 6, bei dem das System ein elektronisches
Ablagesystem ist.